Yes, in another one of those spooky little coincidences, literally minutes after going live with the story on the new Alpine an email from Lotus thuds in announcing a newly spiced up Elise variant. Who'd have thought, eh?
Limited to 200 cars per year, the new Elise Cup 250 is the fastest road going Elise ever and basically cherry picks the best of everything from minimalist Club Racer to track-prepped S Cup, wrapping it up into one rather appealing model.
Headlines are a 21kg weight reduction and power boost from 220hp to 246hp, 0-62 coming up in 4.3 seconds and a top speed of 154mph. Best-case unladen weight with the optional Carbon Aero pack is 921kg, 10kg less than standard and indicative of a visit to the 'lightweight laboratory' that has seen kilos and cost stripped out of both the Evora and Exige ranges.
Given the Elise is already pretty minimal, these weight losses have been harder won but include 10kg less for the lithium-ion battery, 6kg for the carbon seats and 1.5kg for the forged wheels. As you may have guessed from the name, the Carbon Aero kit replaces the standard front splitter, skirts, diffuser and rear wing with carbon fibre equivalents. All told, this adds up to a significant four-second reduction in its lap time around the Hethel test track compared with the Elise S Cup, this now 1min 34sec. Carry-over parts from the S Cup include the Bilstein dampers, adjustable front anti-roll bar, Eibach springs and AP Racing front brake calipers.
One other number that might arouse some discussion is the price, which starts at £45,600. To that you can add as-yet uncosted options like the Carbon Aero pack, a hard top, air-con, cruise control, Clarion stereo, floor mats, forged wheels with Yokohama AD07 tyres, quick release steering wheel with airbag delete, four-point harness and mounting bar, extinguisher and battery isolator, 'sports air filter' and towing eyes. There's also a leather pack, if for some reason you want a sense of luxury in your otherwise stripped-out Lotus.
We drive it soon - more information to follow!
